History Main / Mundanization

* ''WesternAnimation/AdventureTimeWithFionnaAndCake'' reveals that the version of Ooo that Fionna and Cake lived in [[TheMagicGoesAway got turned into an ordinary world]] after Simon Petrikov regained his humanity during the GrandFinale of [[WesternAnimation/AdventureTime the original series]]. Fionna became a tour guide named Fionna Campbell, Cake became an ordinary housecat, and many of the remaining inhabitants of Ooo are {{human|ityEnsues}}s. When Fionna and Cake end up escaping Simon's mind and brought before Prismo (their true creator), he restores them as their original forms, and they and Simon go on a quest to similarly bring their Ooo back to its more fantastical state.

* Borderline example: The Disney series ''WesternAnimation/TaleSpin'' plunks several characters from ''WesternAnimation/TheJungleBook1967'' into a 1930s-era "Golden Age of Flying" environment. Baloo becomes a GeniusDitz pilot, Louie a barkeeper, Shere Khan a (relatively benign) corporate CEO. The actual plot of the film never enters into it.
* In ''WesternAnimation/AeonFlux'', the ending of the more-than-usually [[MindScrew Mind Screwing]] episode "Chronophasia" has Aeon apparently being recreated as an ordinary woman in our world.

* The ''Star Trek'' king of this was ''Film/StarTrekIVTheVoyageHome'', where TimeTravel had our heroes attempting to visit 1980s San Francisco and blend in.

* Along the lines of ''WesternAnimation/TaleSpin'', ''[[LightNovel/KinosJourney Kino's Journey]]'' has a spin-off called ''Gakuen Kino''. The latter is, admittedly, a HighSchoolAU with magical girls and random monsters floating around, but given that ''Kino's Journey'' is a poster child for surreal magic realism, it seems to be a good borderline example.

* The premise of ''Anime/IsekaiQuartet'' where ''Literature/ReZero'', ''Literature/TheSagaOfTanyaTheEvil'', ''LightNovel/Overlord2012'', and ''Literature/KonoSuba'', four light novel series that deal with stories where the protagonists get TrappedInAnotherWorld, get TrappedInAnotherWorld ''again'' - except this time it's a world very much like our own, with the protagonists and their closest allies ending up becoming classmates. The cast of ''Literature/TheRisingOfTheShieldHero'' joins in for the second season.

* The premise of ''Anime/IsekaiQuartet'' where ''LightNovel/ReZero'', ''LightNovel/SagaOfTanyaTheEvil'', ''LightNovel/Overlord2012'', and ''LightNovel/KonoSuba'', four light novels that deal with stories where the protagonists get TrappedInAnotherWorld, get TrappedInAnotherWorld ''again'' - except this time it's a world very much like our own, with the protagonists and their closest allies ending up becoming classmates.

* The premise of ''Anime/IsekaiQuartet'' where ''LightNovel/ReZero'', ''LightNovel/SagaOfTanyaTheEvil'', ''LightNovel/Overlord2012'', and ''LightNovel/KonoSuba'', four light novels that deal with stories where the protagonists get TrappedInAnotherWorld, get TrappedInAnotherWorld ''again'', where the protagonists and their closest allies end up becoming classmates.

* ''WesternAnimation/ThePowerpuffGirls'' gives us the episode "Oops, I Did It Again", in which Professor Utonium dreams of the girls reimagined as the "Run of the Mill Girls", who don't have superpowers or their distinctive NonStandardCharacterDesign. Towards the end, we also see that Utonium's career was also hit by mundanization -- instead of working in a laboratory, he runs "Pizza Pie Laboratory", a take-out pizza joint. "[[MundaneMadeAwesome Man, oh, man! What an exciting job!]]"

* ''Fanfic/APrincessATreehuggerAndASpaceCadetWalkIntoALibrary'' is an ''Literature/{{Animorphs}}'' fanfic there are no aliens, so the Animorphs are ordinary teenagers, and their personal problems are adjusted to reflect this. For example, Ax is now from a foreign country instead of being the TokenNonHuman.

* This was very nearly the fate of the 1988 revival of ''WesternAnimation/BeanyAndCecil''. ExecutiveMeddling wanted Beany to be an ordinary schoolboy and his adventures with Cecil and the others merely daydreams. Creator/BobClampett fought tooth and nail for the series to keep its whimsical fantasy setting and succeeded not long before he passed.

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[[quoteright:350:[[Film/StarTrekIVTheVoyageHome https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/untitled_4_31.png]]]]

Compare BroughtDownToNormal, RefugeeFromTVLand, UniversalAdaptorCast, WelcomeToTheRealWorld. See also AdaptationalMundanity and HighSchoolAU.

*** "Patterns of Force" features a federation interloper setting up a society based on [[WhatAnIdiot the most efficient and well-ordered of all societies]], Nazi Germany.

*** They also actually visit the past of Earth in "City on the Edge of Forever" (TheThirties) and "Assignment: Earth" and "Tomorrow is Yesterday", both of which were set in the contemporary [[TheSixties Sixties]].

** ''Series/StarTrekVoyager'' has this in "Future's End", when the crew visit 1996. There's a clever subversion of the common trope of the FanOfThePast taking charge--Tom Paris is indeed an expert on the twentieth century, but on the ''mid'' twentieth century, and when he mentions the Soviet Union to a local. There's also a jab at the fashion of the era with Chakotay noting that they probably could've worn their [[SpaceClothes Starfleet uniforms]] and fit in just fine.

* ''Series/StargateUniverse'' is a borderline example. While the ''Franchise/{{Stargate|Verse}}'' canon has many fantastic elements, it is set in modern-day earth with mostly normal humans. ''Universe'', however, is set halfway across the universe in a YouCantGoHomeAgain scenario, but still uses a [[ItwasAllJustADream hallucination episode]], [[Recap/StargateUniverseS2E5Cloverdale "Cloverdale"]], to play the trope straight.

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** ''Series/StarTrekVoyager'' has this in "Future's End", when the crew visit 1996. There's a clever subversion of the common trope of the FanOfThePast taking charge--Tom Paris is indeed an expert on the twentieth century, but on the ''mid'' twentieth century, and does TheGreatPoliticsMessUp when he mentions the Soviet Union to a local. There's also a jab at the fashion of the era with Chakotay noting that they probably could've worn their [[SpaceClothes Starfleet uniforms]] and fit in just fine.

* OlderThanDirt: In Sumerian mythology, the goddess Inanna, known for her childish habit of losing her temper and causing widespread chaos and destruction, is married to the shepherd god Dumuzi. However, some ancient love lyrics and wedding songs feature Dumuzi as a regular shepherd who is courting Inanna, who appears as a temperamental young maiden.

** ''Series/StarTrekVoyager'' has this in "Future's End", when the crew visit 1996. There's a clever subversion of the common trope of the FanOfThePast taking charge--Tom Paris is indeed an expert on the twentieth century, but on the ''mid'' twentieth century, and does TheGreatPoliticsMessUp when he mentions the Soviet Union to a local.