History Main / NowDoItAgainBackwards

* An episode of ''WesternAnimation/DuckTales'' has the Nephews run Scrooge's business for a day, only their products tank and bankrupt Scrooge. However, the nephews find out that children aren't allowed to run a company, so everything that happens has to be undone, which gets all of Scrooge's money back.

* In ''TheIncredibleHulk,'' Banner's [[GirlOfTheWeek Girlfriend Of The Week,]] Kate Waynesboro, gets dumped into some wacky gizmo and comes out the other end as an [[TranshumanTreachery evil]], female version of MODOK, complete with [[{{Cephalothorax}} giant head and hoverchair.]] Naturally, sending her through the machine again backwards returns her to normal.

It's a subtrope of the ResetButton. Sometimes you can even deal with magical or even [[LaserGuidedAmnesia memory]] issues this same way-- by repeating the spell (or blow to the head) backwards.

** Jokingly referred to on ''TopGear'', after Richard Hammond's high speed crash: Jeremy Clarkson remarks that it would have set the world record for the fastest car-accident... [[CatchPhrase in the world]]. Only he has to do it again the other way.

* In TheCompleteWorksOfWilliamShakespeareAbridged, the players do Hamlet...backwards.

* The final game in the ''BitTrip'' saga, ''BIT.TRIP FLUX'', is basically ''BIT.TRIP BEAT'' played from right-to-left instead of left-to-right. The game even ends with a backwards version of the pattern from the first stage of ''BEAT''.

* Creator/RobertAHeinlein novel ''Starman Jones''. Starships travel by accelerating to near lightspeed and making a "transition" to a new location. During one transition a mistake is made and the ship ends up lost. The crew tries to get back by returning to the point where they appeared and making a transition which is the reverse of the original in the hope that it will take them home. [[spoiler:It works.]]

* RealLife Example: Sandia National Laboratories has come up with a way to ''[[http://www.sandia.gov/news/resources/releases/2007/sunshine.html reverse combustion and turn carbon dioxide back into fuel]]''. Although plants can do this (concentrate and store solar energy for later use by turning carbon dioxide and water into glucose) without much effort it's a pretty big deal for humans to be able to do it artificially.

* TruthInTelevision (sort of): All vehicle land speed records have to be achieved twice to be declared official - once to set the speed, and ''again'' in the direct opposite direction - this proves that it was an official speed, and not assisted by a tailwind or the such.

* In ''SaintSeiya'', Shiryu's heart stops when Seiya hits his AchillesHeel. The only way to make it beat again is to hit him again from the oposite side.

* In LucasArts' ''VideoGame/{{Loom}}'', many drafts can be reversed to achieve the opposite effect. For example, you can dye wool green, then un-dye it back to white.

* In the "Rock Zombies" arc of ''Comicbook/Runaways'' evil radio DJ Val Rhymin uses a magic-infused song to turn plastic surgery patients into zombies to take over Los Angeles. While the older kids confront Val on the stage of the Hollywood Bowl Molly decides to try playing the song backwards to change all of the zombies back to normal. It works.

* The final game in the ''BitTrip'' saga, ''BIT.TRIP FLUX'', is basically ''BIT.TRIP BEAT'' played from right-to-left instead of left-to-right. The game even ends with a backwards version of the pattern from the first stage of ''BEAT''. [[spoilers:Justified as the game tak

* The final game in the ''BitTrip'' saga, ''BIT.TRIP FLUX'', is basically ''BIT.TRIP BEAT'' played from right-to-left instead of left-to-right.

* Parodied in ''WebAnimation/HomestarRunner'', in [[http://www.homestarrunner.com/answer9.html Marzipan's Answering Machine 9.2]]. Homestar mistakes "Go to Richway and pick up some Hefty bags" for "Go away and pick up sticks" for a breakup message. In an attempt to undo his response, he tries saying it backwards, but realises it doesn't work and ends up switching tapes with the machine.
** Also, in the Strong Bad Email "rock opera," Strong Bad starts the email by saying, "Checkin' email, and take it to the flip side! !edis pilf eht ot ti ekat dna ,liame 'nikcehC"

* Literal example: in the second ''Literature/IncarnationsOfImmortality'' book, Norton, the Incarnation of Time, has to move the whole world backwards for multiple hours to undo the damage caused by a demon he'd accidentally allowed to hitch a ride in his hourglass and wreck the timeline.

* In the DisneyChannel movie "Film/{{Halloweentown}} 2: Calibar's Revenge", the villain put a spell on Halloweentown's denizens, making them gray and boring, and the only way to reverse it is to say the spell backwards. They can't find Aggie's spellbook, so they don't even know what the spell is, but Marnie accidentally figures it out when she was "trap a" in a sentence: the original spell was "apart".

* Literal example: in the second ''IncarnationsOfImmortality'' book, Norton, the Incarnation of Time, has to move the whole world backwards for multiple hours to undo the damage caused by a demon he'd accidentally allowed to hitch a ride in his hourglass and wreck the timeline.

* In an episode of ''PeterPanAndThePirates'', Michael plays a piece of music that accidentally summons a female viking who can enslave people with her singing. Michael figures out that to get rid of her, he has to play the song backwards.

** "The Last Flight". During WorldWarI a British Royal Flying Corps pilot passes through a strange looking cloud and ends up in 1959. He eventually figures out that he needs to pass through the cloud again to return to his own time and does so.

* In the fourth chapter of ''TalesOfMonkeyIsland'', Guybrush has to follow a set of steps to prepare a Voodoo recipe called the "Feast of the senses", to feed La Esponja Grande and make it grow. In the next episode he has to follow similar steps but backwards to make the Esponja shrink, as Lechuck had stolen it and was using to steal the Voodoo energies of the Crossroads.

* The shutdown jingle of Windows NT4 is the reverse of the bootup jingle.

[[folder:Literature Erutatetil ]]

* In ''The Essential ComicBook/SilverSurfer'' the Surfer goes into the future by accelerating to near-lightspeed. He returns to the present by doing the same ''in the other direction.''

* ''SpaceGhost'' episode "Clutches of Creature King": Space Ghost is sent into the past by a "time warp caused by the cross of an energy force with a neutron ionizer". He reverses the process to return to the future.

* ''TotallySpies'' episode "[=WOOHPersize Me!=]": Master Mario's music has a mind control effect on people who listen to it. To remove the control you just have them listen to the music played backwards.

* Subverted in the Creator/MelGibson movie ''WhatWomenWant''. After he tries to reenact the freak accident that gave him mind reading powers, nothing happens.

* In the DisneyChannel movie "Halloweentown 2: Calibar's Revenge", the villain put a spell on Halloweentown's denizens, making them gray and boring, and the only way to reverse it is to say the spell backwards. They can't find Aggie's spellbook, so they don't even know what the spell is, but Marnie accidentally figures it out when she was "trap a" in a sentence: the original spell was "apart".

* ''ThePowerpuffGirls'' #66, "Rain, Rain, Go Away," has a sea monster making everyone do a rain dance from a pop song that everyone (except Buttercup) likes that makes Townsville flooded. To make the flood recede, the girls play the recording of the song backwards and blare it from two large speakers.

* A ''PowerpuffGirls'' episode with brain-breakingly bad physics had them going so fast that relativity started working backward and they ended up in the future. Then they somehow got back by going just as fast in the other direction.

* In Creator/StephenKing's ''TheLangoliers'', the characters accidentally pass through what they dub a "time-rip". The solution to getting back where they belong? Fly back through the time-rip from the other direction (the trip was west-to-east, the return east-to-west).