History Main / MisterSandmanSequence

** The show's [[WholeEpisodeFlashback flashback episodes]] tend to employ these. In "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS4E10LisasFirstWord Lisa's First Word]]", for instance, the flashback to 1983 begins with Marge and a neighbor woman discussing the last episode of ''Series/{{MASH}}'', followed immediately by Homer walking down the street singing "[[Music/CyndiLauper Girls Just Want to Have Fun]]", then subverted when the scene is set with "a young Joe Piscopo was teaching us how to laugh."

** The Kent Brockman quote at the top of the page is from "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS4E6ItchyAndScratchyTheMovie Itchy & Scratchy: The Movie]]".

[[quoteright:350:[[Film/BackToTheFuture https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/hillvalley55.jpg]]]]

* ''Made of Honor'' has this in the opening {{flashback}} to a Halloween party in 1998, with the male lead dressed up in a UsefulNotes/BillClinton mask and bumping into people dressed as Monica Lewinsky and UsefulNotes/HillaryRodhamClinton.

* ''Film/HotTubTimeMachine'' has one of these when the four protagonists reach the ski lodge and realize that it's TheEighties. Featuring leg warmers, [[UsefulNotes/RonaldReagan Reagan]], EightiesHair, ''Series/MiamiVice'' T-shirts, cassette players, cell phones the size of bricks, Creator/{{MTV}} [[NetworkDecay playing music videos]], and more all to set the mood.

** "Mr Sandman" is played once again in BTTF Part II, when Marty tails young Biff to retrieve the Gray's Sports Almanac, though it's shorter than Marty's first walk into 1955 Hill Valley and doesn't have the same emphasis on 1950s culture. Ditto for the scene after Part III's cold opening, which uses the quinessentially-1950s ''Series/HowdyDoody'' on Doc's black and white television to briefly reminds viewers that they're still in 1955.

** "Mr Sandman" is played once again in BTTF Part II, when Marty tails young Biff to retrieve the Gray's Sports Almanac, though it's shorter than Marty's first walk into 1955 Hill Valley and doesn't have the same emphasis on 50s culture.

** The Kent Brockman quote at the top of the page is from "Itchy & Scratchy: The Movie."
** The show's [[WholeEpisodeFlashback flashback episodes]] tend to employ these. In "Lisa's First Word," for instance, the flashback to 1983 begins with Marge and a neighbor woman discussing the last episode of ''Series/{{MASH}}'', followed immediately by Homer walking down the street singing "[[Music/CyndiLauper Girls Just Want to Have Fun]]", then subverted when the scene is set with "a young Joe Piscopo was teaching us how to laugh."

** Lampshaded in "My Mother the Carjacker." Channel 6 news anchor Kent Brockman shows a montage specifically to show viewers what the 60's were like, set to "All Along the Watchtower." Brockman then calls it a "shrill, pointless decade." Although that was partly his own fault, since his montage included such ludicrous images as Series/{{Batman|1966}} dancing the Batusi and Creator/JohnWayne saying [[Series/RowanAndMartinsLaughIn "You bet your sweet bippy."]]

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

->''"Let's take a look back at the year 1928. A year when you might have seen Al Capone dancing the Charleston on top of a flagpole."''

* ''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, {{AutoTune}}d so all the voices sound weird..."). [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wlfK51tN-xo Here's a supercut]].

* ''Film/IndianaJonesAndTheKingdomOfTheCrystalSkull'' is set in 1957. To firmly establish it, the opening scene is set to Music/ElvisPresley's "Hound Dog." In addition, there are teenagers, both a SweaterGirl, and a guy in letter jackets with a buzzcut, racing in a hot rod. All possibly in {{Homage}} to ''Film/AmericanGraffiti''.
* The mall montage in ''Film/FastTimesAtRidgemontHigh'', set to "We Got The Beat" by The Go-Gos are another presumably unintentional, then-present-day example.

Compare SpinningPaper and EiffelTowerEffect. When a scene in a work set in the present day becomes this in hindsight, then you've got an UnintentionalPeriodPiece. See also ProgressiveEraMontage.

** The "Power of Love" scene in Part I was initially included to show Marty going about his [[MorningRoutine normal life]] before the adventure begins (and to establish the contrast of time periods between the 50s and 80s), but 30+ years after the release of the film, it now serves to [[UnintentionalPeriodPiece establish the very 80s world he is trying to return to]].

* Creator/ErnestCline's ''Literature/ReadyPlayerOne'': Within seconds of Wade[=/=]Parzival teleporting to Middleton, James Halliday's virtual recreation of his mid-80's childhood hometown within [[TheMetaverse the OASIS]], he immediately notices "A woman with [[EightiesHair a giant, ozone-depleting hairdo]] bobbing her head to an oversize Walkman. A kid in a gray Members Only jacket leaning against a wall, working on a Rubik's Cube. A [[TheQuincyPunk Mohawked punk rocker]] sitting in a plastic chair, watching a ''Riptide'' rerun on a coin-operated television."

* ''Literature/ReadyPlayerOne'': Within seconds of Wade[=/=]Parzival teleporting to Middleton, James Halliday's virtual recreation of his mid-80's childhood hometown within [[TheMetaverse the OASIS]], he immediately notices "A woman with [[EightiesHair a giant, ozone-depleting hairdo]] bobbing her head to an oversize Walkman. A kid in a gray Members Only jacket leaning against a wall, working on a Rubik's Cube. A [[TheQuincyPunk Mohawked punk rocker]] sitting in a plastic chair, watching a ''Riptide'' rerun on a coin-operated television."
* Creator/IainBanks starts his novel ''Dead Air'' at a party in London. One of the guests asks the host if he's flying to New York on Concorde, which turns out hasn't started flying again yet. So sometime between July 2000 and November 2001. The narrator notes the host's [=PS2=], so we've narrowed down the scene to a single year - 2001. By the end of the chapter we know exactly when the party was.
--> What?
--> ''What?''
--> New York?
--> The what?
--> Where?
--> The World Trade Center? Isn't that--?
--> A plane? What, a big plane, like a Jumbo or something?
--> You mean, like, the two big, um, skyscrapers?
-->....

[[folder:General]]
* Any establishing shot of UsefulNotes/TheVietnamWar is bound to use either Music/CreedenceClearwaterRevival's "Fortunate Son" or Buffalo Springfield's "For What It's Worth".
** ''WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy'' even [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98k2DlQ9PMY made fun]] of the incessant use of those songs in Vietnam movies, showing a [[TheVietnamVet veteran of the war]] who remains haunted by "Fortunate Son".
** ''Battlefield: Vietnam'' and ''VideoGame/CallOfDutyBlackOps'' use these and other rock tunes from the same period.
** The trailer for ''Film/TropicThunder'' used "For What It's Worth" in the opening before subverting it, revealing that it's actually about the TroubledProduction of a movie about Vietnam.
* Many, ''many'' movies set in TheFifties open with Music/ElvisPresley's version of "Hound Dog" ([[CoveredUp never anyone else's]]). ''Film/BackToTheFuture'' is an appropriate exception, as Presley only recorded his version in 1956. Movies in TheFifties also frequently feature a TV playing the ''Series/HowdyDoody'' theme--''Film/IndianaJonesAndTheKingdomOfTheCrystalSkull'', ''Film/BackToTheFuturePartIII'', and the pilot of ''Series/QuantumLeap'', just to name a few.
* Any period piece set in America in the 1960s is likely to feature Music/JimiHendrix's cover of "All Along The Watchtower" by Music/BobDylan.
[[/folder]]

->''"Well of course, It's only been thirty years."''
-->-- '''Future Stewie Griffin'''

* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wSLtBkFHlwk This 2009 Pepsi commercial]] depicts 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, returning World War II soldiers in the '40s, hippie protesters in the '60s, etc. 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.

* Also a [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=88w-BtxZmfs Mercedes-Benz commercial]] called "Timeless." Various model Benzes drive through the '50's, '60's, '70's, '80's and '90's to a version of "Unchained Melody" ''which seamlessly changes musical style for each decade.''

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wSLtBkFHlwk This 2009 Pepsi commercial]] depicts 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, returning World War II soldiers in the '40s, hippie protesters in the '60s, etc. 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.

* In late 2008, Pepsi ran [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wSLtBkFHlwk this commercial]] 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, returning World War II soldiers in the '40s, hippie protesters in the '60s, etc. 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.

Compare SpinningPaper, EiffelTowerEffect. When a scene in a work set in the present day becomes this in hindsight, then you've got an UnintentionalPeriodPiece. See also ProgressiveEraMontage.

* In the second episode of ''Series/{{Journeyman}}'', the lead character finds himself on an airplane in UsefulNotes/TheSeventies. He sees, in the span of about thirty seconds, [[SexyStewardess flirtatious stewardesses]] in orange uniforms, [[EverybodySmokes people smoking]], a kid [[ValuesDissonance playing with]] [[TheWarOnTerror a toy gun]], the film ''[[Franchise/PlanetOfTheApes Conquest of the Planet of the Apes]]'' being screened, and a newspaper that mentions the [[UsefulNotes/GeraldFord Ford]] administration, all while [[NothingButHits K.C. and the Sunshine Band's "Get Down Tonight" plays in the background]].

* The WesternAnimation/{{Classic Disney Short|s}} ''The Nifty Nineties'' (set in TheGayNineties, so no "Smells Like Teen Spirit") is a protracted Mister Sandman Sequence.