History Main / DiscoDan

Usually, this is played for laughs. We get a funny character, who is a walking anachronism by simple virtue of denial. Bonus points if this character forces other people to act as though this reality is true. WereStillRelevantDammit would come into play here. Curiously enough, more than a few of these characters have an affection for disco music, hence the title.

* Star Lord from ''ComicBook/GuardiansOfTheGalaxy'' loves retro stuff and classic 60's to 70's music, even designing his costumes to evoke Buck Rogers-style pulp heroes. This was partly caused by the fact that he was taken from Earth when he was only a kid (which occurred in either the 70's or 80's, depending on the continuity); all he had to remember Earth by was his own memories and the stuff he had on, which included an old Walkman. This used to not be brought up very often, but after the [[Film/GuardiansOfTheGalaxy film adaptation]] made it a major source of characterization, it's since become one of his most well-known character traits.

* In ''Film/GuardiansOfTheGalaxy'', Peter Quill was abducted from Earth in 1988 and hasn't been back since. Consequently, he acts like he's in the 80's and constantly listens and dances to a mix tape of old music. The mix tape was a gift from his late mother and is his most prized possession. Peter's mother might also be one; all the songs on Awesome Mix 1 are from the 60s and 70s, with the most recent one (Escape) being from 1979. For some reference, that's the same year that Peter's actor was born, so he's nostalgic for music older than he is.

* ''Series/WhatWeDoInTheShadows'' plays with vampire stereotypes by having the main cast be an extreme version of this -- stuck in the VictorianLondon time period of classic vampire icons like Dracula -- but then, hilariously, has a much more literal version of this trope with a menacing vampire family nearby who are stuck in TheSeventies (called "the Hustle Dynasty").

* "90s Kid" on ''WebVideo/AtopTheFourthWall'' is out of touch and obsessed with Creator/RobLiefeld-esque [[UsefulNotes/TheDarkAgeOfComicBooks 1990s comic books]]. Note that he met with WebVideo/EightiesDan mentioned above to trade soft drinks, so for one crossover you got twice the Disco Dan fun!

* Episode three of ''Series/{{Being Human|UK}}'' gave us Gilbert, dead since 1985 and less than willing to move on [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WxgiHvZd3Lg in more ways than one.]]

* [[spoiler:Pyramid]] from ''VideoGame/EnslavedOdysseyToTheWest'' is a very dark example of this, being [[spoiler:a survivor of the old, pre-RobotWar world who is so hopelessly trapped in the past and unwilling to let new generations of humanity [[FutureImperfect forget]] said past that he's built a horrifying slave empire devoted almost entirely to [[LotusEaterMachine forcibly sharing his idea of the good ol days]] with the people of [[AfterTheEnd the wasteland]].]]

* In ''WesternAnimation/ThePowerpuffGirls'', the Boogie Man (as in, ''the'' Boogie Man, [[ThingsThatGoBumpInTheNight the nocturnal demon who scares children]]) is like this. In fact, the most vital part of his EvilPlan to plunge Townsville into eternal night involves blocking out the sun [[ItMakesSenseInContext with a Disco ball the size of the Death Star]], and turning Townsville into an eternal disco night club. [[DontExplainTheJoke Because he is]] [[{{Pun}} the Boogie Man.]]

* In Wrestling/{{Progress Wrestling}} there's Flash Morgan Webster who dresses up like a Mod (for those unfamiliar Mod's have their roots in the 1960's, at least 20 years before he was born)

[[caption-width-right:300:The 80's called, they want their leisure suit back.]]

* In Creator/HowardChaykin's ''Radio/TheShadow'' miniseries, Lamont Cranston is a little... well, let's just say that well into the 1980s, he still feels that women should speak when spoken to or else risk a good thrashing.

* In ''WebAnimation/HappyTreeFriends'' there is a character literally named ''Disco Bear'', and as he name would suggest he is all about groovy music, big hair, and boogie down.

* In the middle-late [[TheSeventies 1970's]], there was a resurgence of 1950's rock-and-roll style music that most people who were young at the time found puzzling and anachronistic. Bands like Showaddywaddy stalked the stages of shows like ''Series/TopOfThePops'' in crepe shoes, Teddy-boy suits and duck's arse hairstyles, performing songs that felt twenty years (at least) behind the times. Viewers of the normally intended demographic were puzzled, but their parents -- who'd been young in the 1950's -- basked in the warm glow of recognition and nostalgia. Pan forward another twenty years and note there was a surge of popular music that evoked the [[TheSixties 1960's]]. It was even ''called'' the "second summer of love" [[note]]The first Summer of Love having been 1967)[[/note]]. It has been speculated that the programme-shapers and opinion-formers of both periods had been going through a collective mid-life crisis pining for their own lost youth, and had generated a revival of the music of their youth which appealed not so much to the young as to those of their own generation.

** Then there's the Videlectrix guys, who release UsefulNotes/Atari2600 style games in the present day without realizing that they're ridiculously out of touch until they're tasked with developing the ''Homestar Runner'' game and try controlling a UsefulNotes/Commodore64 with a UsefulNotes/{{Wii}}mote.

* Somewhat {{Justified}} with Cecily Bain in ''[[ComicBook/VampireTheMasqueradeVault Vampire: The Masquerade: Winter's Teeth]]'' as she is a vampire and somewhat stuck in her decade of Embrace (the late Seventies). Cecily was a hardcore GothicPunk rebel for the first three decades of her life and is adjusting to the fact her scene has been dead since the Nineties.

* Jon from ''ComicStrip/{{Garfield}}'' is a fan of disco. In the animated special, ''[[WesternAnimation/GarfieldSpecials Garfield Gets a Life]]'', he's not even aware that it isn't popular anymore. In ''1991''. ("You learn a dance, then zango! -- 14 years later, they change it!") Somewhat funnily, this even works as a ContinuityNod -- there are early comics where Jon was interested in disco back when it was still popular.

** Most of the residents of Camden (including Earl) are stuck in the late 80's or early 90's. Most of the men (and some of the women) wear flannel shirts, bands such as Music/DefLeppard and Music/{{Metallica}} are still hugely popular, and most are HopelessWithTech (until Season 4, when everyone has high-speed Internet and computers out of nowhere) Somewhat justified in that Camden is on the WrongSideOfTheTracks; most of its residents are uneducated past HighSchool (if even that), and many of them are older (and therefore less likely to develop newer tastes in music or adopt new technology). This leads to Camden being a kind of RetroUniverse.

* ''ComicBook/WonderWomanBlackAndGold'': Cathy meets up with Wonder Woman, and has reopened the shop they ran together in the 1960's when she was a teenager despite being middle aged now. She still dresses in the same manner and seems to be trying to relive her glory days. This ends up justified since she is dying of cancer, and only staving off death by using a magic talisman that requires her to be in the place she felt most alive. Understandably having adventures with Wonder Woman and saving people is what she went with for that.

** Disco Stu is a recurring joke character who is eternally stuck in [[TheSeventies the mid-1970s]]. He is a fairly positive portrayal of this trope -- in one episode, he says he ''knows'' Disco is dead and admits that he doesn't even like it anymore, expressing worry that he's become a "one-note guy" because he's let it define him. Also, a few residents of Springfield don't seem to mind Stu; he was Selma's fourth husband, and Marge claims he was the ''only'' of Selma's former husbands that she actually liked.

** Otto in later seasons. He dresses and talks like a perpetual 1980s teenager. [[TechnologyMarchesOn He even still wears a portable cassette player on his hip despite the fact that they've been obsolete for years]].
** Much was made in older episodes (when the passage of time in the real world made the show's sliding timescale less noticeable) of the early 70s as Homer's teenage years, his love of bands long past their sell-by date, most infamously Music/GrandFunkRailroad. Nowhere is this clearer than in "Homerpalooza", where his attempts to sell the kids on his old favourites fall flat and he is left to express confusion because, "Everyone knows that rock achieved perfection in 1974!"

* ComicBook/{{Snowflame}}, the infamous [[AddictionPowered cocaine-powered supervillain]] that premiered in ''Comicbook/TheNewGuardians'' series was revamped as an 80's themed villain who dresses like Don Johnson in ''Series/MiamiVice'' in a 2020 ''Comicbook/{{Catwoman}}'' storyline after more than 30 years since his initial appearance.

* Snowflame, the infamous [[AddictionPowered cocaine-powered supervillain]] that premiered in ''Comicbook/TheNewGuardians'' series was revamped as an 80's themed villain who dresses like Don Johnson in ''Series/MiamiVice'' in a 2020 ''Comicbook/{{Catwoman}}'' storyline after more than 30 years since his initial appearance.

* Gary King, the main character in ''Film/TheWorldsEnd'', still lives, acts and dresses like he's a eighteen-year-old living in 1990 despite him being 41. For instance, he still drives TheAllegedCar that his friend sold him for £300 as his first car, even though he's had to replace almost everything of it, and he apparently has never taken the mixtape that his friend made for him out of its cassette player. He also has unflattering dyed black hair despite his obvious blond eyebrows and beard, to an extent that his character development by the end of the movie is signified by [[ExpositoryHairstyleChange him being shown clean-shaven and with his natural blond hair]].

* ''ComicBook/{{Icon}}'' featured a ComicBook/{{Luke Cage|HeroForHire}} parody named [[http://www.writeups.org/fiche.php?id=1349 Buck Wild Mercenary Man]], who showcased all the most ridiculous aspects of 70s "Blaxploitation" super-heroes. This was because the experiment that gave him his powers also literally froze his brain in 1973.