History Main / DevelopmentGag

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Amphibia}}'': In the third season opener, Anne's father mistakenly refers to the realm of Amphibia as "Amphibiland", the show's working title.

** Avatar Roku takes Aang on a spiritual journey, in which Aang learns about Roku's life, and about how strong friendships can transcend spirit and time, but anyone is capable of evil or good. After the revelation, Toph makes a point of asking Aang whether he thinks that friendships can truly transcend lifetimes. It's a thought-provoking philosophical question, but it's mostly also a reference to the fact that some of Toph's development designs (originally a ''large man'') were used to create ''Roku'''s Earthbending teacher.
** Katara and Sokka's mother's name is revealed to be Kya, which was Katara's name in the pilot. Taking it one step further, after the creators found out they couldn't use the name Kya but before they named her Katara, they called her Kanna: currently the name of their grandmother. And in the sequel series ''WesternAnimation/TheLegendOfKorra'' [[DeadGuyJunior Katara and Aang's daughter]] ends up with the name Kya.
** The poster for "[[WhoWouldWantToWatchUs The Ember Island Players]]" is based on the cover for the Book 1 DVD, and the play itself had another joke about Toph's original design as she is portrayed as a large man. And how the poster (and the Book 1 DVD cover!) put Zuko's scar on the wrong side of his face.
** The first season finale has the Water Tribe using an ancient and [[SpikesOfVillainy super-pointy]] Fire Navy uniform for infiltration purposes that is based on the Fire Nation designs from the pilot.

* ''WesternAnimation/Ben10'' has the WhatIf episode "Goodbye and Good Riddance" end with cousins Ben and Gwen becoming classmates. This is reference to them being best friends and classmates when the show was early in development, with their relationship changing to cousins later on, due to Gwen needing an actual reason to be traveling with them during the summer.

** Mabel's crush on "the guy from the ten-dollar bill" in "The Love God" is a gag left over from the unaired pilot episode.

** The leaked animation test had Luz leaning towards a sleeping prince like she was about to [[DudeShesLikeInAComa kiss him]], only to slap him awake instead. This gag is shot-for-shot identical to the scene where Luz finds the unconscious Golden Guard in "Hunting Palismen". Similarly, the gag where Luz and Willow get their hands stuck together with abomination goo during their first meeting in "I Was a Teenage Abomination" was also taken from the same animation, only there it was a result of their hands actually fusing together due to Willow's (or "Paulina" as she was known at the time) PowerIncontinence.
** [[spoiler:Vee]] is shown picking out pilot Luz's striped shirt from the closet in "Yesterday's Lie", in addition to briefly wielding Beta Luz's red baseball bat.
** In "Edge of the World", [[spoiler:one of the Titan Trapers has the same yellow and black eyes of King's beta design.]]
** Luz appearance in "Thanks to Them" appears to be heavily inspired by Beta Luz, with her even wielding the latter's red baseball bat at one point.
** Luz's outfit in the DistantFinale features pilot Luz's striped shirt. Beta Luz's use of a bat is also referenced with a photo of her and [[spoiler:Vee]] as part of either a baseball or softball team at some point during the TimeSkip.

* ''Series/{{Friends}}'': On the normal show, Monica and Chandler fall in love and are HappilyMarried for years. All sounds normal, though Monica mentions she once had a crush on [[TheCasanova Joey]] and Chandler is sometimes MistakenForGay. In the original plan, Monica and ''Joey'' were the show's OfficialCouple. While the creators toyed with the idea of making Chandler gay during development, they ultimately made him straight. It's a sign of how much can change that the show's most consistent couple would never have been imagined in early drafts.

** Lilith was originally supposed to be the principal of Hexside, something which gets referenced in the DistantFinale with [[spoiler:her sister Eda being the headmaster of the new University of Wild Magic.

* When Buddy is showing off his homemade rocket boots to Mr. Incredible in ''WesternAnimation/TheIncredibles'', he smugly asks Mr. Incredible "Can ''you'' fly?". An early idea for the film had Mr. Incredible as the only member of the Parr family that couldn't fly (and being a bit self-conscious about it).

** The unaired pilot had Luz leaning towards a sleeping prince like she was about to [[DudeShesLikeInAComa kiss him]], only to slap him awake instead. This gag is shot-for-shot identical to the scene where Luz finds the unconscious Golden Guard in "Hunting Palismen".

** The unaired pilot had Luz leaning towards a sleeping prince like she was about to0[[DudeShesLikeInAComa kiss him]], only to slap him awake instead. This gag is shot-for-shot identical to the scene where Luz finds the unconscious Golden Guard in "Hunting Palismen".

** The unaired pilot had Luz leaning towards a sleeping prince like she was about to kiss him, only to slap him awake instead. This gag was reused for Season 2, when Luz first meets Hunter.
** [[spoiler:Vee]] is shown picking out pilot Luz's striped shirt from the closet in "Yesterday's Lie", in addition to briefly weilding Beta Luz's red baseball bat.

* ''VideoGame/PajamaSamInNoNeedToHideWhenItsDarkOutside'': Sam can read a book in the library with a short story about a character called Pumpkin Head Boy. Pumpkin Head Boy was the original concept for Sam's character design.

** The outfit worn by the young Princess Leia is taken from unused concept art [=McQuarrie=] did of Leia for ''A New Hope''.
** Fifth Brother's design was taken directly from an unused piece of concept art that was drawn for ''The Force Awakens''.

** During one scene, Zeb [[PaperThinDisguise poses as a "Hairless Wookiee"]] in order to infiltrate an Imperial compound. Zeb's species, the Lasats, are based on early concept art for Wookiees.

** In "Dude, Where's My Eggman?" our good doctor runs into a criminal walrus that look very similar, and the two quickly form an egocentric friendship comparing themselves to each other. A walrus was one of the last designs among Eggman's original concept art.

** The BattleAmongstTheFlames on the [[LethalLavaLand volcanic planet]] of Mustafar at the very end of ''Film/RevengeOfTheSith'' is a reference to [[WhatCouldHaveBeen the originally planned ending]] of ''Film/ReturnOfTheJedi'', which was sketched out in Ralph [=McQuarrie=]'s concept art but never brought to life. Before Lucas decided to set the FinalBattle between Luke and Vader on a second Death Star, he wanted to end the Original Trilogy with an epic face-off at Emperor Palpatine's private SupervillainLair, located next to a giant lake of lava on the (then-unnamed) Imperial capital world. [=McQuarrie=] wasn't involved in the prequels, having retired in the 1990's, but some shots on Mustafar are recreated almost entirely from his drawings.

* ''Animation/BoBoiBoy'': The [[WhatCouldHaveBeen original idea]] was for [=BoBoiBoy's=] SignatureHeadgear to be a HatOfPower with 3 eyes, but [[https://youtu.be/sfyh2ztjdRk?t=143 the idea was rejected as impractical]] and also [[UncannyValley too scary]]. The 3 eyed cap would make a return in the ''[=BoBoiBoy Galaxy=]'' episode "Copy and Paste" as uncanny EvilKnockoff clones of him would bear caps with 3 bugged-out eyes.

** The BonusBoss of ''VideoGame/KirbyStarAllies'' is [[spoiler:'''Morpho Knight''', who, aside from its CoolSword, is actually a character that was originally designed for the cancelled Kirby Gamecube game.]]

*** Sonic knocks billiard balls into their holes as he rolls around whilst entombed inside a giant snowball in Frozen Factory. Believe it or not, [[http://sonic.wikia.com/wiki/Sonic_Saturn there was a billiards mini-game in one of the many scrapped Sonic games from the mid-1990's, where Sonic had to act as the cue ball.]]

* Episode 13 of ''LightNovel/IsItWrongToTryToPickUpGirlsInADungeon'' is titled ''Familia Myth''. This was also what the author originally wanted to call the series before the editor suggested otherwise.

** Some of Elsa's [[SexyWalk more flamboyant movements]] during "Let It Go" date back to when it was a sassy VillainSong. It ends up making her look confident, so it works well despite the change in tone.

** In the queue for ''Mario Kart: Bowser's Challenge'' at the Hollywood version of ''Ride/SuperNintendoWorld'', you can spot several blueprints for Bowser's contraptions labelled as being for "Project Number MK-526". "Project 526" was the codename for ''SuperNintendoWorld'' at Hollywood while it was under construction.

* The construction of the ''[[Franchise/JurassicPark Velocicoaster]]'' at [[Ride/UniversalStudios Universal's Islands of Adventure]] saw an amusing tangent when an osprey decided to build its nest on top of the ride track, defying several attempts to get it to move away and becoming a celebrity among fans tracking the ride's progress. Universal was eventually able to safely encourage the osprey to move its nest to another location, and it was honored with an appearance on the ride's pre-show, where it appears on a video as one of the dinosaurs that [=InGen=] is researching.

* ''VideoGame/KnightsOfTheOldRepublicIITheSithLords'': "I'm Atton. I actually wasn't supposed to make it into the final game, but I was created at the last minute. Blame my agent. I was actually slated for a spin-off to ''[[VideoGame/DarkForcesSaga Jedi Knight]]'', but I don't want to talk about what happened ''there''."

* In ''WesternAnimation/DespicableMe'', the Minions were originally going to be human. The guards at PX-Labs in [[WesternAnimation/DespicableMe2 the sequel]] are based on the original concept.

* During pre-production, ''VideoGame/{{Hades}}'' was first envisioned as a game based on the myth of Theseus, and would have had the player exploring the labyrinth of Crete seeking to slay the Minotaur. This early concept, known as ''Minos'', was ultimately scrapped as the developers felt Theseus came off as too generic a protagonist, but he and the Minotaur still made it into the final game as the DualBoss of Elysium.

** The ship wrecks featured in the ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' episodes "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS3E26S4E1TheBestOfBothWorlds The Best of Both Worlds]]: Part II" and "[[{{Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS5E7Unification1}} Unification, Part 1]]" [[http://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/articles/wolf359.htm have been well documented by fans]]. It turns out that some of them are actually study models for the ''Excelsior'' from ''[[Film/StarTrekIIITheSearchForSpock Star Trek III]]''.

** Creator/JoeMenosky, scriptwriter for ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' and ''Series/StarTrekVoyager'', was a graduate from Pomona College, which encourages the invention of jokes and myths around the number "47", including an annual celebration on April 7th. While writing episodes, Menosky would make otherwise "random" numbers a reference to 47. Other writers caught on to the joke and began adding their own versions independently of Menosky, resulting with a [[https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/47 dedicated page]] on the [[TheWikiRule fan-wiki]].
*** ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'''s "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS3E20TinMan Tin Man]]": The Ghorusda Disaster that Tam was involved in several years prior caused the deaths of 47 Starfleet officers.
*** ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'''s "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS4E2Family Family]]": Picard misidentifies a bottle of wine as 2346 and has to be corrected that the vintage is '47. His brother later gives him a another bottle of the '47 as a parting gift.
*** ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration''[='=] "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS5E25TheInnerLight The Inner Light]]": [[YearInsideHourOutside Picard experienced Kamin's entire life in 47 minutes]].
*** ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine''[='=]s "[[Recap/StarTrekDeepSpaceNineS02E14Whispers Whispers]]": Parada '''IV''' has '''seven''' moons.
*** ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'''s "[[Recap.StarTrekDeepSpaceNineS01E15Progress Progress]]": 47 people have already left Jerrado.
*** ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'''s "[[Recap/StarTrekDeepSpaceNineS03E08Meridian Meridian]]": When Jadzia gets ready to beam down to Meridian, O'Brien says the dimensional shift will happen in 47 minutes.
*** ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'''s "[[Recap/StarTrekDeepSpaceNineS03E09Defiant Defiant]]": The ''Defiant'' destroys Cardassian Outpost 47.
*** ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'''s "[[Recap/StarTrekDeepSpaceNineS03E17Visionary Visionary]]": Kira moves the Romulan delegation to Section 47, level two of the Habitat Ring.
*** ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'''s "[[Recap/StarTrekDeepSpaceNineS03E24Shakaar Shakaar]]": O'Brien is about to win his 47th game of darts when he messes up his arm.
*** ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'''s "[[Recap/StarTrekDeepSpaceNineS03E26TheAdversary The Adversary]]": The audience/crew is first alerted to the presence of a changling when Dax says that the ''Defiant'' has 47 people aboard, meaning one extra.
*** ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'''s "[[Recap/StarTrekDeepSpaceNineS07E13FieldOfFire Field of Fire]]": When Ezri is looking for potential suspects among the Vulcan population, there are 48 aboard the station and Joran Dax tells Ezri that there are 47 suspects that are innocent.
*** ''Series/StarTrekVoyager'''s complete series DVD collection contains a total of 47 discs, due to the extra features added on.
*** ''Series/StarTrekEnterprise'''s "[[StarTrekEnterpriseS04E18InAMirrorDarkly In a Mirror, Darkly, Part II]]": Only 47 of the ISS ''Enterprise'' crew survive, all of them aboard the USS ''Defiant''.
*** ''Series/StarTrekEnterprise'''s "[[StarTrekEnterpriseS04E16Divergence Divergence]]": The episode starts with ''Enterprise'' only 47 minutes from a reactor breach.
*** ''Series/StarTrekDiscovery'''s "[[Recap/StarTrekDiscoveryS1E02BattleAtTheBinaryStars Battle at the Binary Stars]]": Just before ''Europa'' is destroyed, Saru reports that ''Shenzhou''[='s=] shields are at 47 percent.
*** ''Series/StarTrekDiscovery''[='s=] "[[Recap/StarTrekDiscoveryS1E04TheButchersKnifeCaresNotForTheLambsCry The Butcher's Knife Cares Not for the Lamb's Cry]]": The DistressCall from Corvan 2 says that they've lost Mines 4 and 7, a reference to the number "47".

* The two-part episode "The Menagerie" of ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries'' features extensive footage of the (at that time yet) unaired first pilot "[[Recap/StarTrekS1E0TheCage The Cage]]". Apart from Creator/LeonardNimoy as Spock, the cast was completely different, and also the design of the sets and the uniforms differed somewhat. "The Cage"-footage cleverly was used as {{Flashback}} to an earlier point in Spock's career. The episode also established that Christopher Pike, the Captain of the ''Enterprise'' in said unaired pilot, was actually Kirk's predecessor; this detail would even go on to influence ''Film/StarTrek2009'', which portrayed Pike as Kirk's mentor.

* During pre-production, ''VideoGame/{{Hades}}'' was first envisioned as a game based on the myth of Theseus, and would have had the player exploring the labyrinth of Crete seeking to slay the Minotaur. This early concept, known as ''Minos'', was ultimately scrapped as the developers felt Theseus felt too generic as a protagonist, but he and the Minotaur still made it into the final game as the DualBoss of Elysium.

* One of the endings of ''VideoGame/Disgaea3AbsenceOfJustice'' has Laharl falsely claim to be Mao's father, with Etna and Flonne arguing about which one of them gets to play the role of the mother. This is a referece to an early concept for Mao, where he actually was Laharl and Flonne's son.