History Main / MisterSandmanSequence

* OlderThanTelevision: Mae West's 1933 film ''She Done Him Wrong'' opens with one of these.

* ''WesternAnimation/BoJackHorseman'' has a RunningGag of doing this as over-the-top as possible. One episode has a shot of [=BoJack=] driving down the street in the 1980s, in front of shops selling Rubik's Cubes and 'cocaine mirrors', in a suit, singing along to a song with the lyrics "[[TropeName Generic 80s New Wave beat]]". The exact shot is repeated later in the episode but with inflatable chair shops and teens playing hackey-sack ("Generic 90s grunge song, everyone in flannel..."), and ''again'' two seasons later but with subprime mortgage sellers and flip-phone shops ("Generic 2007 pop song, everyone's {{AutoTune}}d so the voices sound weird..."). [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wlfK51tN-xo Here's a supercut]].

** A [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dq18xEq_cQw humorous talk show]] featuring Creator/JuddAptow and Creator/MariaBamford about [[TheNineties the 1990s]], and

* Vanity Fair Magazine's centennial anniversary in 2013 made 10 videos highlighting each decade by it's significance, such as
** Suffragettes in the 1910s,
** Pole sitting in the 1920s,
** The 1939 New York World's fair,
** Creator/JDSalinger's literary works in the form of WWII tattoos,
** A catchy ListSong of 1950s innovations and pop culture,
** An interview of notable 1960s personalities,
** An "inside look" on the day and the life of Studio 54,
** A heap of old issues about Reagan and AIDS discovered by two girls,
** A humorous talk show about the 1990s, and
** Anti-terrorism issues during the Bush Era.

* ''Film/{{Watchmen}}'' starts with a montage of superhero history, to the sound of "The Times They Are a-Changin'" by BobDylan.

** The ad is accompanied by a remixed version of Music/TheWho's "My Generation"; in a nifty touch, the arrangement changes with each scene to reflect that given era. (The original mixed version is, naturally, used for the '60s.)

* In late 2008, Pepsi ran [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wSLtBkFHlwk this ad]] set to Music/TheWho's "My Generation" and depicting young folks consuming their product [[ProgressiveEraMontage through the decades]], from the turn of the century to the present. Each decade is shown as you'd expect: flappers in the '20s, hippies in the '60s, and so on.

These are most commonly and generally best utilized by films and TV shows about TimeTravel, especially when the characters [[ProgressiveEraMontage frequently travel between different eras]] making quickly establishing the time period a necessity.

The trope-namer is the scene in ''Film/BackToTheFuture'' when Marty first sees downtown Hill Valley in 1955.

The trope-namer is ''Film/BackToTheFuture''.

* [[Music/DonMcLean American Pie]].
* Music/EvelynEvelyn: "The Tragic Events of September."

* Music/BillyJoel's "We Didn't Start the Fire" [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFTLKWw542g&ob=av2e is]] a LaundryList of late-20th-century cultural markers rattled off one after the other. He stays in chronological order (at least approximately) until he reaches 1963, after which he starts throwing them out more or less at random... 80s, 60s, 80s again...

* The Trocadero sequence in ''ShowBoat'' (which takes place on New Year's Eve, 1904) uses only period music. The overture to its SpiritualSuccessor, ''SweetAdeline'', is a medley of tunes from TheGayNineties.

* ''Comicbook/TheLeagueOfExtraordinaryGentlemen'' was positively littered with visual references to the time periods in which its various arcs were set, especially during ''Century''.
* During their first few minutes in New York circa 1907, the Comicbook/{{Runaways}} read a newspaper about Typhoid Mary, walk past an Emma Goldman expy, and intervene in a fire in a factory staffed by child labor.
* In Alison Bechdel's collection of DykesToWatchOutFor comics, the introduction where she explains herself and the comic contains flashbacks with a box that name-drops a song for each decade: "that disco mix of the StarWars theme" for [[TheSeventies 1977]], "Physical" by Olivia Newton-John for [[TheEighties 1981]], and "She's All I Ever Had" by Ricky Martin for [[TheNineties 1999]].

[[folder:Film]]

[[folder:Webcomics]]

* Simultaneously Lampshaded, Parodied, and Averted in 2015's [[Recap/TheSimpsonsS26E19TheKidsAreAllFight "The Kids are All Fight"]] flashback episode. "The President at the time was The President. Popular music was all the rage."

[[quoteright:276:[[Film/BackToTheFuture http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/hillvalley55_842.png]]]]
[[caption-width-right:276:[[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kesfyzSl7ZU Cue the music!]]]]

* The opening loading screen and title sequence in ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoViceCity'' helps establish that it's TheEighties. The loading screen simulates a Commodore 64 loading screen, then the title sequence plays a SuspiciouslySimilarSong of the ''Series/MiamiVice'' theme while showing scenes of life in 1980s Miami--big hair, boxy cars, etc.
** Also, the first time you enter a vehicle, its in-game radio is always scripted to be on, and playing [[Music/MichaelJackson Billy Jean]]. Every time.
* Subverted in the ''VideoGame/{{Fallout}}'' games. The games always start with music and imagery of 1950's Americana, before panning out to show that the games actually occur in a post-apocalyptic future.
** Played straight with Vault 112's Tranquility Lane simulation in {{Fallout 3}}.

** Played straight with Vault 112's Evergreen Mills simulation in {{Fallout 3}}.

** The probable explanation is that Hammer really wanted to hammer (sorry) it home hard that this Dracula movie was not a PeriodPiece. The point is not "hey, remember those wacky days of 1972?" but "look, here's a bunch of stuff you probably passed on the way to the theatre (assuming you're in London) to show you this is set in the present day." All of which leads to the film being an UnintentionalPeriodPiece today.
* ''Film/HotTubTimeMachine'' has one of these when the four protagonists reach the ski lodge and realize that it's TheEighties. Featuring leg warmers, [[RonaldReagan Reagan]], EightiesHair, ''MiamiVice'' T-shirts, cassette players, cell phones the size of bricks, {{MTV}} [[NetworkDecay playing music videos]], and more all to set the mood.

* ''Film/TheTimeMachine2002'' had a scene playing with this motif as a kind of TimeCompressionMontage to show how time passes outside the titular machine, in which dresses on a shop's exhibition get shorter and shorter.
** This is copied from the 1960 version. (It wasn't in the novel, since Creator/HGWells obviously didn't know how the world would change after his time.)
*** The story ''does'' talk about things around him changing suddenly, though the narrator is vague on the details and mainly talks about buildings appearing and disappearing suddenly, and the landscape visibly changing.

* Used too many times to list in ''Series/DoctorWho'' -- often with the added twist that the Doctor and his companion have judged the time period of his destination incorrectly, and disembark the TARDIS dressed inappropriately (disco attire in 1870s Scotland, or leather jackets and jeans at QEII's coronation.)
** On the other hand, such a {{long runner|s}} has artifacts of its various production time periods that sometimes seem to have walked straight out of this trope. Watch the 6th and 7th Doctor episodes, cringe at the overabuse of EightiesHair and dreadful paleosynth music. Part of it can be blamed on a TotallyRadical attempt to make the show "hip" and appeal to the youth of various periods.

* ''Film/HotTubTimeMachine'' has one of these when the four protagonists reach the ski lodge and realize that it's TheEighties.

* Parodied in ''ClerksTheAnimatedSeries''. When Randall has a flashback back to when they met in the eighties, not only is everyone in the store they work at (except, notably, Randall and Dante themselves) decked out in eighties fashions, but almost everyone is a notable person from that decade -- including Ronald Reagan. Then, when Dante remembers that they actually met in the ''seventies'', the flashback includes a whole load of seventies icons, including Jimmy Carter and John Travolta ''a la'' ''Saturday Night Fever''.

** In the DVD commentary for Part II, it's noted that they'd considered using "Papa Loves Mambo" by Perry Como before deciding on "Mister Sandman". "Papa Loves Mambo" does still appear in Part II playing on 1955 Biff's car radio, though.